Your Right to Know

Cassaundra Crawford said it was a daily struggle to get her daughter to go to school, where her
dyslexia made it a constant struggle to recognize numbers and letters.

One day, as she watched a younger child reading a book, young Sydney turned to her mom. “She
asked me the heartbreaking question, ‘Mommy, why am I so stupid?’

“My Sydney is not stupid, but, obviously, her special needs were not being addressed,” Crawford,
of Columbus, told a House Finance subcommittee examining the education portion of Gov. John Kasich’s
two-year, $63.3 billion budget.

But thanks to financial sacrifices at home and the state’s Jon Peterson Special Needs
Scholarship, Crawford enrolled her daughter at Marburn Academy, a private school specializing in
educating students with dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder.

She described 10-year-old Sydney’s academic and self-esteem growth as phenomenal. Sydney has
advanced two grade levels in one year, Crawford said.

But the Kasich administration’s education funding plan changes the way the Peterson Scholarship
is calculated, creating uncertainty about the funding amounts. About 1,350 students currently use
the scholarship.

“We can’t figure it out,” Marburn Headmaster Earl Oremus said.

The proposed formula, he told legislators, “is so complex and cumbersome that neither the
families of the students nor the schools that want to enroll them will be able to determine in a
timely and accurate way their level of funding.”

As part of Kasich’s money-follows-the-child philosophy, the Peterson Scholarship no longer would
be funded on a simple calculation that involves a base amount plus additional money based on a
child’s level of need. Marburn students get $7,600, but the amount can go up to $20,000.

The new formula bases the scholarship amount on the student’s home district plus other factors.
Oremus, whose school enrolls about 300 students a year from 26 districts, said he has not been able
to determine those funding levels.

Rep. Bill Hayes, R-Granville, chairman of the subcommittee, said, “The problem is, these schools
have no way of predicting what these schools are going to get in scholarships. Each kid is going to
have a different amount he’s bringing with him.”

Most families cannot afford Marburn’s $20,000 annual tuition, so many rely on the scholarship,
financial aid and loans to cover the cost. But if families cannot project their out-of-pocket
costs, they and the school will struggle to get students enrolled, Oremus said.

He hopes legislators make the funding levels more predictable and consistent. Students with
dyslexia, Oremus said, don’t have different needs just because they come from school districts with
various wealth.

Hayes agreed, and he expects it to be among a number of changes made to Kasich’s school-funding
plan. “We think it’s a problem. We don’t know if that’s what the administration intended to do, but
it creates a real confusing situation.”